Lost and Found: Homeless Youth in Wallingford

March 5, 2013: This post has been updated to reflect the passage of SB 5147 concerning juveniles and runaway children.

The following is a guest post by Ray Lumpp–a writer for AllTreatment.com, a local resource for individuals and families facing addiction and mental health issues in Washington State.

Solid Ground/FamilyWorks

Seattle boasts a comprehensive support network for adults facing addiction and mental health issues: from the free Wallingford public library, one can find local food banks, needle exchanges, drop-in centers, and emergency housing. Solid Ground, a non-profit that focuses on ending poverty and homelessness in the Wallingford community, is based out of the exact same building. With a rise in homeless youth, the services and systems are changing to include people under the age of 18—a problem which, only recently, has been addressed in most major cities. Until last month, if a person under the age of 18 appeared at a homeless shelter, the provider had to notify the parents or police within 24 hours, as stated in the Becca Bill.

“So they just quit going,” explained Kathleen Murphy, a shelter manager at ROOTS young adult shelter in the neighboring University District. “They would get picked up by pimps or they would be endangered in other ways because that’s who would take them in.”

The new bill, signed into law on February 28th, 2013, opened a window of 72 hours until notification, giving shelters and providers time to develop relationships, to get to know the individuals and their problem, and to work with them before notifying their parents or police. While it may seem wrong to increase the amount of time before a runaway is reunited with his or her family, many teenagers experiencing homelessness are from families which can no longer support them in times of economic downturn or are escaping domestic abuse, and a homeless youth shelter is better than living on the street.

The bill’s passage marks a recognition of the youth homeless population that many cities have failed to make; Los Angeles first attempted a count of young adults living on the street in 2011 (It found 3,600: the city had shelter capacity for only 17 percent of them). Wallingford and the rest of Seattle benefit from city and community programs focusing on homeless youth already in place, but still many shelters must turn people away. The best way to help is to get involved: Solid Ground was started by community members nearly four decades ago, and ROOTS has been operating for 8 years without needing to close due to lack of volunteers. If you’d like to volunteer your time or donate food or clothing to Solid Ground, click here. The nearby 45th Street Clinic also serves homeless youth by providing basic medical and dental care, as well as invaluable access to information and services. Please help end the local problem of homelessness in Seattle, especially for those under the age of 18.